Free The Duke's Holiday by Maggie Fenton Page A

into her teacup, her wig halfway down her
forehead.
    “I’ll have you know, Lord High and Mighty Montford, that I
am more lady than you are a gentleman. Storming into my household, threatening
to throw us out on our noses –”
    “I have done no such –”
    “ – my poor aunt in her dotage, who has known no
other home, and four unmarried ladies, with nowhere else to go but the
workhouse. It is cruel and inhuman, but what else should I expect from a
Montford? And how dare you question my … my upbringing? I am every inch the lady.
I am the daughter of a gentleman, sirrah ,
and a lady. My mother was the daughter of an Earl, as a matter of fact. And
Honeywells owned this land centuries before your barbarian ancestors crossed
the seas wielding their cudgels and cutting
up our peace .”
    By the end of her tirade, she was inches from him, poking
her finger into his chest. Which was quite insupportable, really. The last
person who had poked him –Marlowe – had wound up with a broken
nose.
    “I beg your pardon. I must have been confused by the
trousers you were wearing earlier. And the pig. And all of the swearing.
Perhaps this is how ladies behave in
Yorkshire?” he bit out, heat flooding his veins, his head throbbing.
    He seized her hand to shove it away, which was his second
mistake of the evening, because when his skin touched her skin, he felt as if
lightning had shot from the heavens, through the crooked castle walls, and
right into the place that they were joined, ricocheting through the rest of his
body without pity.
    He nearly swooned. Like a besotted London chit in a
too-tight corset.
    “Your Grace,” Miss Honeywell whispered. “Montford.”
    He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was looking at
him with the same befuddled and slightly panicked intensity that he was feeling.
Then he looked down and realized he was squeezing her hand so tightly his
knuckles were white.
    He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Miss Honeywell.”
    “Your Grace.”
    “I am tired. And hungry. And about three seconds away from
throttling someone. I would like a bed. And some food.” And a wall to bash my head against. “If, of course, it is not too
much to ask.”
    She looked as if it was entirely too much to ask. “No,
certainly not. We can continue our delightful conversation tomorrow morning.
Before you leave .”
    He laughed without humor, realizing that at this moment,
despite the mud and the shrewish woman before him, wrangling with this nest of
vipers was slightly more appealing than hopping back into the carriage.
    He would look into acquiring a mount. Perhaps riding back
to London, despite the mud and the threat of rain and highwaymen, might be the
best way put an end to this ill-advised jaunt. But in the meanwhile, he was
going to fix the muddle at Rylestone and get the Honeywells out of his
Miscellaneous Pile for good. “Oh, I am not leaving, Miss Honeywell. As much as
we both might wish otherwise, I am staying here until we come to an
understanding.”
    She gave him an arch look. “Then I am afraid, Your Grace,
that you’ll be staying until, oh, say, hell
freezes over .”
    Aunt Anabel started awake with a snort, her wig snapping
back into place. “Astrid, my dear, really. Do mind your tongue. We have a Duke
hereabouts.”
    He was standing right in front of the old lady, not hereabouts , but he wasn’t about to
quibble with her sound advice. “Yes, Astrid, do mind your tongue,” he murmured.
    Miss Honeywell shot him a fulminating look, turned on her
heel, and marched from the room.
    He followed in her wake, and it took every ounce of his
remaining self-control not to seize her by the shoulders and pin her hair back
into place before … before …
    Good God. He must be thoroughly done in. Because for a
moment, he’d had the strangest desire to kiss Miss Honeywell senseless.
    He shuddered in revulsion and pinched himself, in case this
was some horrible nightmare after all.
    But he didn’t wake up.